he spiral stair to the crypt was ancient and dank – shadows danced on the walls at the light of Nero’s lantern.
He reached the bottom of the staircase and tore his way through the cobwebs obstructing the archway. A sudden thought stopped him in his tracks. He was sure the dungeons of this tower were the resting place of the Vampire, yet how could it pass through those webs every morning without removing them? Obviously there was another entrance to the crypt... or was it just another of the many powers of the creature he was hunting?

Undeterred, Nero entered the room and felt at once that he was no longer stepping on a stone floor. The room was covered in moist soil, the foul mould of that accursed land of Sylvania. That was how the Vampires recovered their supernatural energies in their daily slumber – they needed to lay in the womb of their evil land.

Then he saw the coffin and froze, holding his breath. Inch by inch he approached. After reaching it, he put down his lantern and prepared his wooden stake and his mallet for the job he had come to do. He slowly removed the lid of the coffin and... empty! There was no trace of the body, he had been fooled!

Yet something small moved suddenly in the furthest end of the coffin. Nero started and raised his lantern again. The creature he illuminated was born out of a nightmare, it was a rotten human head standing on eight articulated legs like those of a huge spider. Certainly this was one of the experiments of the dark master of the tower. The creature hissed a disgusting "masssteerr!!!" and at the same time scuttled towards a dark corner of the room. Nero moved a few steps in that direction and saw a great stone sarcophagus, carved in strange symbols. They reminded him of the scrolls from the ancient kingdom of Khemri that he had studied in the past. Before he could make a move, the heavy slab covering the sarcophagus fell aside with a loud thud. Then a shadow, darker than the surrounding darkness, moved out of it and into the chamber. The only detail Nero could clearly see were the eyes of the Vampire, two gleaming jewels of ancient evil.

"So, miserable mortal, you thought you could catch Nicodemus unprepared!?" whispered a voice from the darkness, a voice that reached Nero’s innermost fears and overwhelmed his senses with sheer horror.

Nero gave a shrieking cry of frustrated anger, immediately followed by a series of arcane words of power. From his eyes erupted two black rays of pure dark magic, that struck the Vampire and seemed to engulf him. The creature was surprised by the violence of the attack, hardly managing to disperse the energies that threatened to destroy him. Nicodemus raised his arms and chanted aloud in the language of his long-lost homeland. Answering to his call, a dozen animated Skeletons clawed their way out of the crypt’s ground and started to move towards Nero. As the circle closed, an unpredictable smile appeared on the thin lips of the human. "Wrong move, Nicodemus!" Nero assumed the same posture as the Vampire and uttered a series of commanding words.

The Skeletons stopped their advance. Nicodemus felt his control on the mindless servants fading, his sorcery challenged by another powerful mind.

He struggled to maintain control of his minions, and the two wizards, the living and the Undead, started a titanic battle of will. Nicodemus could feel the vast flow of dark magic that his opponent was channelling and at the same time the subtle level of control he was using, in an attempt to exploit any gap in Nicodemus’ defences. How was that possible? When did his student reach such an unbelievable level of mastery?

Slowly the Skeletons turned and began to advance towards their creator. Nero started to laugh aloud "You are defeated, pathetic monster! You have lost your arrogance all of a sudden! I am the master now."

The Vampire moved back until he was pressed against the wall and then made a last attempt to regain control of the Skeletons. Nero moved forward and kept the pressure high. He almost felt pity for the rotten monster that had once been his master and who was now desperately cornered in his own crypt, betrayed by his apprentice. Then the Vampire abruptly ceased the struggle. Nero was surprised by this apparent surrender and stared at his former master with suspicion. Was he really going to give up?

Nicodemus spoke in a slow, patronising tone "I see that your knowledge of Necromancy has grown to an impressive level, but you must consider you are just a human. And humans are fragile, their life is so easily crushed out of their weak bodies. Don’t you think that in your eagerness to defeat me, you have come a bit too close?"

Then the Vampire darted towards Nero, literally moving through the Skeletons, which exploded as if they were made of fragile clay when the immensely strong creature hit them. Nero realised his mistake. When he was young, in Tilea, he had heard legends of the great strength of the Lords of the Night, but he had never imagined that his former teacher, who seemed a wizened carcass, could move like that. He had never imagined he could move so fast... never imagined he could burst through those Skeletons so easily... never imagined those skeletal hands could break his neck so quickly.

Mounted Necrarch Vampire

The Vampire threw away the broken puppet that was Nero’s body, while the Skeletons collapsed to the ground. Then he staggered back towards his sarcophagus. Rest, he needed to rest. The human had wisely attacked in the middle of the day, when Nicodemus’ powers were at their weakest. The Vampire could feel the presence of the sun, even this deep underground. After putting the heavy lid back in place and before falling into his deep slumber, Nicodemus reflected on what had happened. How was it possible that a mere scholar, a creature that had been learning Necromancy for such a short time (how long had it been anyway? Maybe thirty years?) could have become a match for his powers? He had studied the Black Art for thousands of years, he had been taught by the Great Necromancer himself, he who challenged Death and created the discipline of Undeath. How was it possible?

A couple of nights later, Nicodemus woke up. He had had enough rest, what he needed now was the life force of a living creature. He stood up and crossed the crypt towards the stairs. He hardly noticed the remains of the battle, piles of bones where the Skeletons had fallen and the body... where was Nero’s body?

He knew he had killed the human – he clearly remembered the flame of life extinguished by the force of his own grasp. Nicodemus was astonished. A contingent spell! Nero must have learned the legendary technique of casting a spell whose effect was triggered by the death of its caster. Such was the skill of his student! That kind of spell could only be sustained by awesome will-power, a strength that he’d never suspected could be found in any human. Only then did Nicodemus understand. There was the answer! That was the reason why humans could progress in the Necromantic arts beyond the limits of any Vampire, even of the Necrarch line. Humans were obsessed with the fear of dying, of passing away from the world and disappearing. Their lives’ span was so short that they had to find a way to cheat Death in the space of a few decades. The blood kiss brings immortality to Vampires, but immortality also means that they lose that most powerful driving force, the fear of Death. They become in this way limited, incapable of reaching the peaks of the Black Art.

At this revelation Nicodemus was at first dismayed, but then he started to think of the problem as a challenge. He needed to find another apprentice, so that he could study him much more closely. Maybe there was something that could be learned even from the humans which he used to prey upon... From that night on, Nicodemus would experiment on his victims with a new and refreshed scholar’s interest.

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History of The Necrarchs | Special Characters: Melkhior The Ancient

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